Evans dispels Vietnam Biggles myth

Above: Ex-Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, nicknamed Biggles after a fictitious British World War One Fighter Ace (below).

Exclusive: GARETH EVANS DISPELS VIETNAM BIGGLES MYTH
By Sasha Uzunov

Australia’s former high profile Foreign Minister and International trouble shooter, Gareth Evans, has finally put to rest a long running urban legend about a combat plane ride he allegedly took during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s.

The former politician was recently appointed Chancellor of the Australian National University in Canberra.

“Gareth Evans (ANU Chancellor) has asked me to convey to you that he was not the person in your anecdote. He believes there may have been a journalist of the same name in the region around that time,” Mr Simon Couper, an ANU spokesman said.

In 1983 Evans, as Federal Attorney General and a Senator, was the nicknamed Biggles, a fictitious larger than life British World War I fighter ace, for using the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) to spy on anti-dam protestors in Tasmania’s wilderness.

As Foreign Minister from 1988 to 1996, Evans was criticised for being too close to Indonesia during its brutal occupation of East Timor and his cynical deployment of Australian soldiers into combat in Kuwait, Somalia, Rwanda and Cambodia in an attempt to win the Nobel Peace Prize and become United Nations Secretary General.

A former Australian diplomat, the New Zealand born Alastair Gaisford has been critical of Evan’s failure to save Australian David Wilson, who was kidnapped and later murdered in Cambodia in 1994.

A number of high profile Australian Army pilots who saw combat action in the Vietnam War with the Army Aviation Corps unit 161 Recce Squadron made the interesting claim that a journalist “Gareth Evans” was given a joyride in a Cessna spotter plane in Vietnam, circa 1967-68 One of the pilots has also claimed that the name "Gareth Evans" is in the flight log book.

According to Mr Ashley Ekins, an official historian of the Vietnam War with the Australian War Memorial, there was a “Gareth Evans” who was a journalist in Vietnam. One of Evans’ articles is in the footnotes of the book, an official history of Australia’s Vietnam War, called ‘On the Offensive.’

Mr Ekins said:

“The reference you mention is to a newspaper article in The Sun of 11 October 1967 (On the Offensive, p. 253, p. 567 n. 71) quoting Brigadier Stuart Graham, commander of the 1st Australian Task Force.

“I’m unable to confirm whether the writer of that article, Gareth Evans, was the same Gareth Evans who later served as Attorney General and Foreign Minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor governments. However, it seems unlikely. Gareth Evans the politician initially pursued a career in law.

“Notwithstanding his later expressed position on Vietnam, as President of the Student Union at the University of Melbourne in 1965, Evans supported Australian and American involvement in the Vietnam War in student debates and letters to the Melbourne Age on 7 May 1965 and The Nation on 15 May 1965 (although he was opposed to the sending of conscripts).”

The authorised biography of Gareth Evans, the ex-Foreign Minister, by ex-Foreign Affairs (DFAT) staffer, Keith Scott, makes no mention of any specific visit to Vietnam during the 1960s.
There is a reference to Evans being on a United States Navy ship in the south Pacific and later backpacking through South East Asia and Indochina before taking up a post as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in the United Kingdom in August 1968.

In 1965 Evans as President of Melbourne University’s student union (SRC) threw his weight behind the Vietnam War though he opposed conscription (the draft). He was born in 1944 and just missed out on the national service call up when it was reintroduced for Vietnam.

He was selected by the United States State Department as a student leader to undertake an overseas trip talking about the War but later grew opposed to it.

Mr Noel Turnbull, an arts patron, public relations guru, academic and former journalist, knew Evans during their university days.

“I am not aware of Gareth making a private visit to Vietnam,” he said. “You should ask him directly.”

Mr Turnbull, who is regarded as a living legend within public relations circles in Australia, was himself conscripted for Vietnam War service as an Army Artillery officer in 1968.

There was a Gary Evans who worked as a journalist for the Brisbane Courier Mail, The Sunday Mirror in London and the Australian Associated Press, and did a stint as a Vietnam War correspondent. He is now a member of The Australian Press Council. A message was left for him at the APC over whether he was the Gareth Evans in question. No response as yet. We will keep you posted on any further developments. Link: www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/about/members/journmems.html

(end)

Links:

www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8673&page=0
When politicians should step aside - On Line Opinion - 19/3/2009

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com/2009/03/cambodia-murder-controversy.html
Team Uzunov: Cambodia murder controversy

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com/2009/07/15th-anniversary-of-david-wilson-murder.html
Team Uzunov: 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF DAVID WILSON KIDNAPPING/MURDER

www.smh.com.au/opinion/by/alastair-gaisford
Alastair Gaisford - National Times - smh.com.au

PM RUDD TO HELP KIDNAPPED REPORTER

Interesting story in the Herald Sun newspaper today over Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd... and his willingness to help to free a kidnapped Australian journalist in Somalia.

Perhaps PM Rudd should be instructing his appointee as co-chair of the International Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commission, Gareth Evans, to reveal any more information he knows about the David Wilson controversy.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25826482-661,00.html
THE parents of kidnapped journo Nigel Brennan have met Kevin Rudd to seek help rescuing their son from his Somalian captors.
by Emma Chalmers
24 July 2009

Heather Brennan spent 20 minutes with Mr Rudd in Bundaberg on Thursday.

Mr Brennan, 37, and a Canadian journalist were kidnapped in Somalia 11 months ago and his family say his health is failing.

Mr Rudd said it was a "difficult, ugly and dangerous" part of the world and the Government was doing all it could to assist Mr Brennan.

"If I was to look at the consular cases upon which I have spent the most time since I've been Prime Minister, it is this one," he said.

"And similarly with the Foreign Minister and others. It is one which the Government takes seriously, but I do not underestimate the degree of difficulty involved in this."

THE parents of kidnapped journo Nigel Brennan have met Kevin Rudd to seek help rescuing their son from his Somalian captors.

Heather Brennan spent 20 minutes with Mr Rudd in Bundaberg on Thursday.

Mr Brennan, 37, and a Canadian journalist were kidnapped in Somalia 11 months ago and his family say his health is failing.

Mr Rudd said it was a "difficult, ugly and dangerous" part of the world and the Government was doing all it could to assist Mr Brennan.

"If I was to look at the consular cases upon which I have spent the most time since I've been Prime Minister, it is this one," he said.

"And similarly with the Foreign Minister and others. It is one which the Government takes seriously, but I do not underestimate the degree of difficulty involved in this."

read more....

15TH ANNIVERSARY OF DAVID WILSON KIDNAPPING/MURDER

26 July will mark the 15th anniversary of the kidnapping and later murder of Melbourne backpacker David Wilson in Cambodia. Three months earlier Brisbane backpacker and model Kellie-Anne Wilkinson was also killed in Cambodia (1994).

On 7 September 1994 Wilson, Englishman Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michael Braquet were executed

Could they have been saved?


UNCOMFORTABLE ANNIVERSARY: David Wilson murder in Cambodia 1994

By Sasha Uzunov
copyright 2009

Some of Australia's biggest ex-politicians such as former Prime Minister Paul Keating and Foreign Minister Gareth Evans will look upon the 15th anniversary of the controversial kidnapping and later murder of Australian David Wilson in Cambodia with great discomfort.

The man at the centre of this controversy was Gareth Evans, now playing international firefighter on behalf of the Rudd ALP Federal government. Last year Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed him co-chair of the International Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commission.

On 26 July 1994 an Australian backpacker in Cambodia, Melbournian David Wilson was kidnapped and later killed and three months before Brisbane model Kellie-Anne Wilkinson suffered the same fate. Both Keating and Evans have not said much on the issue.

Michael Costello, a Foreign Affairs adviser during the Paul Keating ALP Federal government, said he would not be commenting on the upcoming 15th anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of Australian David Wilson in Cambodia.

Mr Costello was the Secretary of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) from 1993 to 1996, and later became a Chief of Staff to then Federal ALP Opposition Leader Kim Beazley (1999 to 2001). He is now Chief Executive Officer of Actew AGL, Canberra’s power utility.

The former diplomat, released a statement through Actew AGL spokeswoman, Ms Stephanie Luelf back on 25 March 2009:

“Thank you for your enquiry but we won't be making a comment.”

As a serving soldier in 1997, I remember speaking to a short, tough, wiry Corporal, a former plumber and surfer, who had been on the Rwanda United Nations peacekeeping mission in 1994. The Corporal, who is probably a Sergeant or a Warrant Officer in the Special Forces by now, revealed that there were elite SASR soldiers putting their hands up, without even being prompted, to undertake a rescue mission to save Australian backpacker David Wilson, who was kidnapped and held for ransom by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia but it had been vetoed by those in Canberra. Wilson was later killed by his Khmer Rouge kidnappers on 7 September 1994.

Australia, at Gareth Evans’s urging, had sent a large peacekeeping force to Cambodia in 1993 and was an influential player in that part of the world when Wilson was taken from a train along with two other westerners, Frenchman Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet and Englishman Mark Slater, who also later were killed.

A 1998 Victorian Coroners Inquest into the death of Wilson heard the testimony of an Australian Foreign Affairs official, Alastair Gaisford:

“Evans was advised to but did not use his direct personal connections with senior Cambodian officials to secure Wilson's release.

"He (Evans) did not pick up the phone, as we advised him to do, to say, 'Stop this military build up, stop or we will cancel our aid or punish you in a diplomatic meaningful way'."

Gaisford said the Australian Government did not debrief embassy staff in Cambodia after the kidnapping and murder of Brisbane model Kellie-Anne Wilkinson three months earlier in Cambodia.

We do not know if the Wilson inquest will be restarted as the then coroner Graeme Johnson retired two years ago and it was put on hold.

Whatever the failings of the Howard Coalition government (1996-2007), it did not pussyfoot around when Australian contractor Douglas Wood was kidnapped in Iraq in 2005. It sent in the SASR who rescued Wood.

The moral of the story for politicians is let the professionals handle it and give them the tools to finish the job.

VICTORIAN STATE CORONER:

After a 3 month chase for a response, a spokeswoman from the Victorian State Coroner's Office revealed today that no one was sure when the Wilson inquest would be re-started.

"You can register as an interested party," the spokeswoman said. "You'll be notified if it's restarted."

DON WATSON: PM KEATING SPEECH WRITER

On 19 March 2009, a response from prominent academic and social critic, Dr Don Watson, a former political speech writer for Prime Minister Paul Keating, was sought over his thoughts on the Wilson tragedy.

An email was sent to Melbourne University academic Professor Stuart McIntyre, who kindly suggested Dr Watson could be contacted via Ms Louise Adler, publisher of Melbourne University Press.

An email was sent to Ms Adler, as well as Ms Hilary McPhee, Dr Watson's wife, and a letter posted to Dr Watson's business address.

So far there has been no response.
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Previous stories

http://teamuzunovmedia.blogspot.com/2009/03/keating-man-no-comment-on-wilson.html
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

KEATING MAN: NO COMMENT ON WILSON
KEATING’S MAN WONT TALK ON WILSON CASE

By Sasha Uzunov
Copyright 2009

Michael Costello, a Foreign Affairs adviser during the Paul Keating ALP Federal government, said he would not be commenting on the upcoming 15th anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of Australian David Wilson in Cambodia.

Mr Costello was the Secretary of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) from 1993 to 1996, and later became a Chief of Staff to then Federal ALP Opposition Leader Kim Beazley (1999 to 2001). He is now Chief Executive Officer of Actew AGL, Canberra’s power utility.

The former diplomat, released a statement through Actew AGL spokeswoman, Ms Stephanie Luelf on 25 March 2009:

“Thank you for your enquiry but we won't be making a comment.”

A story on http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/ , Australia’s premier e-journal on politics, revealed last week that the Australian government had turned down an offer of a military rescue mission to save David Wilson and two other western hostages being held by Cambodia’s notorious Khmer Rouge in 1994.

All three were later murdered.Mr Costello was asked why the government rejected the military plan. He was also asked, considering his position in DFAT when Prime Minister Paul Keating had committed Australian troops into combat in Rwanda in 1994, why he Mr Costello had not volunteered for military service as a youngman and fight in the Vietnam War (1962-72).

In 1998 the Victorian State Coroner began an inquest into the death of Wilson but was stopped when the then Coroner, Graeme Johnstone, retired in 2007.

The Who’s Who of Australia book reveals that Mr Costello was born on 23 March 1948 and joined Foreign Affairs in 1971 and did a stint as Head of Current Intelligence Office with the Office of National Assessment (ONA).

(end)

Link:http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8673&page=0

When politicians should step aside

On line opinion article on David Wilson - 19 March 2009
By Sasha Uzunov

extract:

"...Prior to their murder, in early August 1994, the French government had sent a rescue team of intelligence officers (DGSE) to the Kampot province where the hostages were being held. Headed by the infamous Major Alain Mafart of Rainbow Warrior bombing fame, it conducted a four-day surveillance mission, then returned to its team to standby near Angkor Wat, awaiting the order to rescue Wilson, Braquet and Slater.

"Also by early August, the British had their own SAS (Special Air Service) rescue team on standby in Bangkok, Thailand, like the French team already in Cambodia, waiting for their governments' green light. Fearing failure, the Australian government’s opposition to such a snatch and grab raid, forced the French and British governments to call any rescue mission off, ensuring the hostages murder three weeks later..."

Cambodia murder controversy

Australian David Wilson--Cambodia murder controversy continues-- could he have been saved?

PREFACE: 2009 will mark the 15th anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of Australians David Wilson, a Melbourne social worker, and Kellie-Annie Wilkson, a Brisbane model, in Cambodia.

In 1994 Australian David Wilson, and his two traveling companions, Englishman Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet were kidnapped and later murdered by the infamous Khmer Rouge.

Journalist Sasha Uzunov reveals that the Australian Keating government rejected a rescue mission led by the Australian Army's elite SASR...

Could Wilson, Slater and Braquet have been saved? In contrast, the US government successfully negotiated the release of American hostage Melissa Himes, also taken in Cambodia in 1994.... An inquest by the Australian authorities (Victorian State Coroner's Court) into the death of Wilson was stopped after the then Coroner retired in 2007. No word has come as to whether this inquest will be re-started.


ON-LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8673&page=0
When politicians should step aside
By Sasha Uzunov - posted Thursday, 19 March 2009

After the enormous destruction of the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires in the state of Victoria, the experts told us never again. Australian politicians, whether fighting fires or wars, seem to have trouble heeding the bitter lessons of history but there is some hope.

Could the ferocious 2009 Victorian fires have been minimised? It is hard to say now, as we wait for the findings of the impending Victorian Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Still, 2009 marks the 15th anniversary of two “political bushfires” that still burn fiercely in the minds of many Australians.


The two “political bushfires” from 1994 are the Rwanda United Nations Peacekeeping mission fiasco and the killing of two Australian backpackers in Cambodia, Melbourne social worker David Wilson and Brisbane model Kellie-Anne Wilkinson.

The man at the centre of these 1994 “fires” was the then Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, who had a burning ambition to become the next UN Secretary-General. Since retiring from Australian politics, Evans has exacerbated this condition as a near-invisible international firefighter heading up the International Crisis Centre in Brussels. Ironically, Evans is again playing international firefighter for another ALP Federal government. Last year Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed him co-chair of the International Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commission.

Then ALP Prime Minister Paul Keating and Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, in order to score international brownie points and bolster Evans’ tilt at the UN top job, deployed a contingent of Australian army medics, who were protected by a company of infantry soldiers from Townsville-based battalion 2/4 RAR, to African hell hole Rwanda as part of United Nations Peacekeeping mission that was flawed from the very start.

Despite the obvious limitations of the UN Rwanda mandate, Australian peacekeepers were able to do the best job possible in treating the many wounded and suffering during a genocide that saw rival ethnic Hutu extremists kill nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.

Years later, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was also responsible for the Rwanda debacle when he ran the UN peacekeeping portfolio, said:

“We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least 800,000 defenceless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda.

“Neither the UN Secretariat, nor the Security Council, nor member states in general, nor the international media, paid enough attention to the gathering signs of disaster. Still less did we take timely action.”

In his book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Canadian ex-General Roméo Dallaire, who was commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Assistance_Mission_for_Rwanda, claims that Annan was overly passive in his response to the incipient genocide. General Dallaire explicitly asserts that Annan held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict, and from providing more logistical and material support.

In particular, Dallaire claims that Annan failed to provide any responses to his repeated faxes asking him for access to a weapons depository, something that could have helped defend the endangered Tutsis. Dallaire concedes, however, that Annan was a man whom he found extremely "committed" to the founding principles of the United Nations.

So questions remain as to why Australian troops were sent to Rwanda.

In order to get an understanding of the Keating government’s rationale for getting involved in the almost guaranteed UN failure in Rwanda, immediately after our successful involvement with the UN in Cambodia, I applied on June 17, 2007 through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) to obtain the briefing notes of Greg Turnbull, the Prime Minister’s then media advisor but got nowhere fast.

I was a serving soldier in a Sydney-based infantry battalion in 1997, and remember speaking to a short, tough, wiry Corporal, a former surfer in civilian life, who had been on the Rwanda mission.

“We shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” he said. “It was absolute bloodthirsty savagery. But the politicians wanted us there even though we weren’t allowed to stop the massacres.”

This Corporal, who is probably a Sergeant or a Warrant Officer in the Special Forces by now, also revealed that there were elite (Special Air Service Regiment) SAS soldiers putting their hands up, without even being prompted, to undertake a rescue mission in Cambodia to rescue (kidnapped) Australian backpacker David Wilson, and his two traveling companions, Englishman Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet. After being kidnapped from a train on July 26, 1994, they were held for ransom by the Khmer Rouge in southern Cambodia. However, our SASR undertaking such a rescue mission had been vetoed by the civilian heads of Foreign Affairs and Defence in Canberra against the military advice and recent experience in Cambodia.

“The SASR were itching to go and could’ve pulled off the rescue mission successfully,” he said "... but were not called in".

David Wilson and his two companions were killed by their Khmer Rouge kidnappers a few weeks later.

Australia, at Gareth Evans’s urging, had sent a large UN peacekeeping force to Cambodia in 1991-93 and was an influential player in that part of the world when Wilson was taken from a train along with two other westerners.

Cambodia had been ruled by the murderous Pol Pot and his communist Khmer Rouge regime which killed millions and was finally toppled by neighbouring Vietnam in 1979. Decades of instability followed until a western brokered peace deal in 1991.

A 1998 Victorian State Coroner's Inquest into the death of Wilson headed by then State Coroner Graeme Johnston heard the testimony of an Australian Foreign Affairs official who had served as a diplomat in Cambodia in 1994-95, Alastair Gaisford:

“Evans was advised to use his direct personal connections with senior Cambodian officials, (particularly Hun Sen and Ranariddh,) to secure Wilson's safe release (but would not do so.)
"He (Evans) did not pick up the phone, as we advised him to do, to (tell them), 'Stop this military build up, stop now or we will cancel our aid or punish you in a diplomatic meaningful way'."

Gaisford was referring to a 1994 military strategy, known as the Three Leopard Spots, directed by Hun Sen to remove the Khmer Rouge from three major strongholds, commencing at Phnom Vour, where Wilson and the others were being held hostage. The Cambodian Army attack started there on August 6 ,1994 and it directly led the Khmer Rouge to kill the three foreign hostages a month later on September 7, 1994.

Prior to their murder, in early August 1994, the French government had sent a rescue team of intelligence officers (DGSE) to the Kampot province where the hostages were being held. Headed by the infamous Major Alain Mafart of Rainbow Warrior bombing fame, it conducted a four-day surveillance mission, then returned to its team to standby near Angkor Wat, awaiting the order to rescue Wilson, Braquet and Slater.

Also by early August, the British had their own SAS (Special Air Service) rescue team on standby in Bangkok, Thailand, like the French team already in Cambodia, waiting for their governments' green light. Fearing failure, the Australian government’s opposition to such a snatch and grab raid, forced the French and British governments to call any rescue mission off, ensuring the hostages murder three weeks later.

Gaisford, in his testimony to the 1998 Coroner's Inquest, said the Australian government had learnt nothing about kidnappings in Cambodia as it did not debrief embassy staff in Cambodia after the kidnapping and murder of Brisbane model Kellie-Anne Wilkinson http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/496/2510.html three months earlier in Cambodia, nor learn the obvious lessons from Melissa Himes’ safe release in May 1994 by the same Khmer Rouge then holding Wilson and his companions on Phnom Vour.

Ten days after Kellie-Anne Wilkinson’s kidnapping and murder the next morning in April 1994, Melissa Himes, an American aid worker in Kampot was taken by the Khmer Rouge and held to ransom on Phnom Vour. The then US senior diplomat in Cambodia, Charles “Chuck” Twining immediately and publicly threatened the Ranariddh-Hun Sen government with cutting off US military aid if it did not stop military operations against the Khmer Rouge holding Himes. This direct diplomatic threat worked and Himes was released five weeks later after successful negotiations with her captors by her NGO, Food for the Hungry: only then did Cambodian government launch military attack against the Khmer Rouge on Phnom Vour.

Sadly, three months later, Wilson and his companions on Phnom Vour received no such direct official intervention from their own governments, despite repeatedly asking for such actions in desperate messages sent out during their six weeks’ captivity. Indeed, by official duplicity, the very contrary actually happened.

According to Gaisford, Prime Minister Keating and Foreign Minister Evans had privately given official written undertakings to the Cambodian government during August, that they would not cut off promised but not yet delivered Australian military aid irrespective of the hostage outcome. This was at the same time as they publicly accepted Cambodian government assurances - contrary to fact - that it would not launch its planned military operation against the Khmer Rouge holding the hostages on Phnom Vour "without prior consultation" with them.

As the Australian government already knew that military operations had commenced on August 6, Gaisford said, all Keating and Evans needed to do then was to threaten Hun Sen, as Twining had done successfully in April, and Hun Sen would have complied long enough to ensure the negotiation and safe release of Wilson, Slater and Braquet took place, then the Cambodian government could resume military operations against the Khmer Rouge on Phnom Vour.

When Keating and Evans failed to do so, they sealed the hostages’ fate by their inaction and lack of courage while publicly duplicitously telling the hostages' families and the Australian public that "we are doing everything possible to get their safe release". Nothing could have been further from the truth. Clearly, Wilson and his companions died on Phnom Vour in vain to protect Evans' false conclusion during a visit in April 1994 that "Cambodia had returned to normalcy" so as to keep his bid to become the next UN Secretary-General on track.

In 2005, whatever the failings of the Howard Coalition government (1996-2007), it did not pussyfoot around when Australian contractor Douglas Wood was kidnapped in Iraq. Immediately it sent in the SASR who then rescued Wood. No repeat of Cambodia 1994 inaction there. Wood lived to tell his tale. The truth is now known to all.

By contrast, the truth of the Wilson fiasco may never be known. The Victorian Inquest into David Wilson's death has been adjourned after State Coroner, Graeme Johnstone, retired in November 2007. Since then there has been no word over whether the Inquest will ever be completed. So we may never know why Evans simply did not pick up the phone. But he is now trying to save the world in his new role as PM Rudd's co-chair of the International Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commission.

The moral of the story for politicians, whether it be fighting bushfires or wars, is to step back and let the professionals handle it, having first of all given them the necessary official support and tools to start and then finish the job.


Sasha Uzunov is a freelance photo journalist, blogger, and budding film maker whose mission is to return Australia's national defence/ security debate to its rightful owner, the taxpayer. He also likes paparazzi photography! He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1991. He served as a professional soldier in the Australian Army from 1995 to 2002, and completed two tours of duty in East Timor. As a journalist he has worked in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. His blog is at Team Uzunov.

Other articles by this Author
» CSI Dubrovnik: the Britt Lapthorne mystery - March 4, 2009
» 'Reverse Balkan blowback': good guys become bad then good - February 19, 2009
» VC winner heralds a new era of heroes - January 23, 2009
» Out-'talibaning' the Taliban: can the US ‘win’ in Afghanistan? - December 30, 2008
» Generals and Diggers saved the day in Timor - November 20, 2008

RWANDA VETERANS TRYING TO RETURN

Ken Pedler with Australia's national symbol and as a digger (K. Pedler photos)

Attention

DVA (Department of Veterans Affairs- Australia)
RWANDA VETERANS TRYING TO RETURN

By Sasha Uzunov

copyright 2008

A former Australian Army corporal who saw action in Rwanda in 1994 is trying to organise a return to that African hell hole to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide next year but has received no response from the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Mr Ken Pedler, who now lives in Queensland, served with 2/4 RAR on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the African nation of Rwanda and later with the famed 6RAR in East Timor in 2000.

“What I am trying to do is get backing for someone to pay flights so the guys and girls who want to come can make it over,” he said.

Mr Pedler said he had contacted the Prime Minister’s Office and RSL and had not received a response.

“There was no media interest from Channel 7 and 9 or ABC TV,” he said.A decade’s long civil war between rival ethnic groups Hutus, the majority and the Tutsi, the minority, led to the genocide of 1 million Rwandans. It was into this hell hole that Australians were sent.

In 1994 Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and Foreign Minister Gareth Evans as part of United Nations mission deployed a contingent of army medics, who were protected by a company of infantry soldiers from 2/4 RAR, to Rwanda.

Despite the limitations of the UN mandate, Australian peacekeepers were able to do the best job possible in treating the many wounded and suffering.

The then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said:

“We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least 800,000 defenceless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda.

“Neither the UN Secretariat, nor the Security Council, nor member states in general, nor the international media, paid enough attention to the gathering signs of disaster. Still less did we take timely action.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Pedler contact details: ---email: (kmp95@live.com)

In commemoration of the 15th year of the Rwandan genocide Join us in Rwanda!

‘’Gathering of Forgiveness, A Step to Reconciliation’’

February 10 through 18, 2009 In addition to conferences and field trips, together we will launch a Garden of Forgiveness.

In a period of 100 days in 1994, nearly ONE MILLION innocent women, men and children died.
Leaving many widowed and children orphaned and traumatized. It is our hope to continue bringing healing to this nation by creating a ‘Culture of Forgiveness’ and encouraging and empowering leaders.

Details:
http://www.mizerochildren.org/

Gathering of Forgiveness, Feb. 10 – 18, 2009, Itinerary, Cost & other Details We hope that you will consider joining us on this journey! Gathering: Arrival Tues., FEBRUARY 10 and depart Wed. FEBRUARY 18, 2009Conference: Evening of the 10th through evening of the 13th : • Variety of speakers (Africa, USA, Canada, Australia and Europe) to address our theme of forgiveness and reconciliation. • Perpetrators and survivors of genocide that have repented and reconciled will share their experiences.Field trips : will include trips within Rwanda and to nearby Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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RELATED STORY - Australian Peacekeeper & Peacemaker Veterans' Association

president@peacekeepers.asn.au

http://www.peacekeepers.asn.au/

This Sunday 14 September marks Australian Peacekeepers Day.

The hundreds of Australians involved in peace operations worldwide and their families will take a moment to reflect on the contribution they are making to restore order and security to communities affected by war and civil unrest and to remember those who have given their lives for that cause.

Since 1947 there have been more than 66,000 Australians engaged in peacekeeping globally from the Middle East and Sudan to places closer to home such as East Timor.

Australia’s excellent reputation and 61 year history in peacekeeping is a proud one but tends to go largely unreported. The Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Committee is working hard to change this and give peacekeepers better recognition through the dedication of their own Peacekeeping Memorial in Canberra.

A site has been approved for the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial alongside the various memorials along Anzac Parade in Canberra and the design competition is in its final stages with the final concept due to be unveiled next month.

“This Memorial will commemorate and celebrate the past and present role of Australian Peacekeeping around the globe, and the very real contribution by Australian military and police in the often dangerous situations they face. We encourage all Australians to commend and support the service of our Australian police, military and civilian peacekeepers" said Peacekeeping Memorial Project Chairman Major General (Ret’d), Tim Ford AO.

“The Peacekeeping Memorial will provide a national focus for gathering and commemorating the service of our peacekeepers on days such as Australian Peacekeepers Day and we look forward to providing these brave men and women a fitting monument to their service.

The Memorial seeks to show that Australia's contribution to peacekeeping exemplifies Australian values of openness, fairness, egalitarianism, mateship, initiative, and respect for diversity and social justice for all people.
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RWANDA LINKS:

http://www.defence.gov.au/news/armynews/editions/1105/features/feature02.htm
http://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/27/rwanda.asp
Reflections on Rwanda
http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/peacekeeping/anecdotes/rwanda01.html
http://www.peacekeepers.asn.au/books.htm
The Long Road to Rwanda - Simon Kelly (book)